Theory on the Temperature Dependence of Giant Magnetoresistance

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical model explaining how giant magnetoresistance varies with temperature in multilayer materials, accounting for spin fluctuations, phonon scattering, and exchange potentials, aligning well with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a static functional-integral method to incorporate spin fluctuations into GMR temperature dependence modeling, providing a comprehensive explanation of experimental observations.

Findings

Model accurately explains temperature-dependent GMR in Fe/Cr and Co/Cu multilayers.

Spin fluctuations significantly influence GMR at finite temperatures.

Theoretical results align with recent experimental reports.

Abstract

The temperature dependence of the giant magnetoresistance (GMR) for currents parallel and perpendicular to the multilayer plane, is discussed by taking account of the random exchange potentials, phonon scatterings and spin fluctuations. The effect of spin fluctuations, which plays an important role at finite temperatures, is included by means of the static functional-integral method developed previously by the present author. Our model calculations well explain the observed features of the parallel and perpendicular GMR of Fe/Cr and Co/Cu multilayers recently reported by Gijs {\it et al}.